STUDIES ON THE INTEGRATED CONTROL OF SUGARCANESTALK BORERS

Abstract

Sugarcane is one of the most important sugar crops in Egypt. The area cultivated with sugarcane reached about 295.817 feddan in 1999. The purple lined borer, Chilo agamemnon Bles. is the most serious and considered the key pest of sugarcane, while the pink borer, Sesamia cretica Led. seems to be less serious.

The study presented in this thesis was carried out at Mallawi region (Minia Governorate-Middle Egypt) during three successive seasons (97/98, 98/99 and 99/2000) in order to find out the possibility of using some unconventional methods for controlling the two main sugarcane stalk borers hoping yo add a new step towrds the integrated pest management to Egyptian sugarcane fields. The obtained results may be summarized as follows :

I- Effect of certain agricultural practices on the main sugarcane stalk borers : 1.1- Relative susceptibility of certain sugarcane varieties to C. agamemnon attack :

Different sugarcane varieties (of which some are tested for the first time) were evaluated for their susceptibility to infestation by Chilo agamemnon. The criteria used for this evaluation were the percentages of infested plants, infested joints & girdled plants, and the number of holes/infested plant. Consequently, the overall resistance or susceptibility index (ORSI) was easily calculated for each variety, considering the ORSI of the commercial variety C.9/54 = 1. Varieties that had ORSI more than 1 were evaluated as more susceptible than the commercial variety, while those had ORSI less than 1 were considered more resistant than C.9/54 variety. The experiments were carried out at Mallawi (Minia governorate) in 1998 on the second ratoon sugarcane (20 varieties) and in 1999 on 17 varieties in an experiment and 9 varieties in the other one, all were planted canes in spring plantation.